The Theory Background What Happened According to Karr What May Have Happened Incriminating Evidence Confession Disturbing Emails Disturbing Audiotapes Police Investigation Prior Record Handwriting Evidence Extensive Travels Other Evidence Exculpatory Evidence Motivation for False Confession

 

The Theory

Background

• Timeline. AP has posted a Timeline of John Mark Karr between 1996 and 2006. Guardian Unlimited also has a timeline.
• Arrest in Thailand. John Mark Karr was arrested for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey on August 16, 2006 at approximately 6:00 am in Bangkok, Thailand. He was flown to LA where he was booked and subsequently flown to Boulder. Details of how Karr was apprehended are contained here. A fairly detailed and complete story of the investigation that led to his arrest and extradition is contained in the affidavit for a search warrant (attached to DA response to request for public records).
• Employed as Teacher. According to Boulder DA Mary Lacy, "Mr. Karr was living in Bangkok. He began his employment as a second grade teacher in a Bangkok international school on Tuesday of this week. Mr. Karr has traveled extensively since leaving the United States several years ago. The suspect reportedly is a 41 year old teacher from the United States. His resume has been posted.
• Nature of Ramsey Connection Unknown.

1. Former Georgia Resident. The Modesto Bee reports "Karr was a teacher who once lived in Conyers, Ga., according to Wood. The attorney Lin Wood said the Ramseys gave police information about Karr before he was identified as a suspect. Wood would not say how the Ramseys knew Karr. But JonBenét was born in Atlanta in 1990, and the Ramseys lived in the suburb of Dunwoody, about 30 miles northeast of Conyers, for several years before moving to Colorado in 1991."
2. National Sunburst Competition. JBR won 2nd place at this competition on August 13, 1996, in Atlanta, GA. As a pedophile, it would not have been illogical for Karr to have attended such an event and/or read news about it later. This may have put JBR in his headlights. Any news about this might well have mentioned that JBR had earlier lived in Atlanta (they moved to Boulder in 1991) and even mentioned Access Graphics. Karr was very net-savvy and may have been able to learn a lot about Access Graphics remotely without having to travel from Alabama to do so.
3. Known Addresses Since 1988. Karr's known addresses have been posted by Internet poster Jameson.

• Charges in JBR Killing Dropped. On August 28, all charges were dropped when Karr's DNA was found not to match.
• Extradition to California. After being cleared in the Ramsey case, Karr was extradited to California to face misdemeanor child pornography charges; these too were dropped because Karr's computer on which evidence of this offense was contained was lost by local law enforcement authorities.
• Internet poster Greenleaf has posted a notice issued by the Chastain Park Civic Association on October 20, 2006 warning neighbors that John Mark Karr had moved into the area.
• Internet poster Mame has posted a story indicating that Karr was seen shopping at the Walmart of his former hometown of Hamilton, AL. It is unclear whether he is planning to live there.
• On October 28, 2006 it was reported:  "John Mark Karr has apparently left his father's Sandy Springs home, driven away by pressure from neighbors, his father said Friday. His departure came about a week after an e-mail announcing the arrival of Karr — the man brought back from Thailand as a suspect in the slaying of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey — circulated through several neighborhoods in north Atlanta and Sandy Springs. "I don't know nothing. I'm not hiding anything. ... He's not here," said his 85-year-old father, Wexford Karr." ....During the past week, Karr and his son visited Hamilton, Ala., where they have relatives, to see whether John Mark Karr would be more welcome there. But after John Mark Karr stopped at a local Wal-Mart, word got out around town about his arrival, the father said. The two returned to Atlanta."
• Internet poster Pugs reported on November 26 that "A local (Atlanta) tv station interviewed John Karr last night. He is living in Georgia, perhaps in a house owned by his father. The area (Grant Park) is very close to both the Atlanta Zoo and the Atlanta Pen."
• On July 7, 2007, "Karr and a woman police identified as his girlfriend were arguing at Karr's father's residence in Sandy Springs, Zgonc said. Karr's father became involved, and the argument between the two men became "physical," Zgonc said. When a 911 telephone call from the residence was made, Karr threw the phone on the floor, Zgonc said. Zgonc did not know who made the phone call." CNN report. However, it was also reported that "His father said the fight was minor and doesn't believe his son should be in custody. "Nah, he didn't hurt me," Karr said. "I'm too tough for a little whippersnapper kid to hurt me."
• Karr's new 22-year old girlfriend is Brooke Simmons, a divorced mother of a young little girl. She had begun corresponding with Karr in late 2006. The Glenn Beck show had an extensive discussion on the psychology of women who are attracted to men who are in trouble with the law.
• On July 13, 2007, "Fulton County Magistrate Judge Stephanie Davis said Friday that she would dismiss those charges provided Karr gets six months of domestic violence counseling and has no violent contact with his father or girlfriend." CNN report.
• Legal Documents Related to John Mark Karr.

---

What Happened According to Karr

• Entry at 5:00 PM. Karr claims  he entered the house at 5:00 when the Ramseys left for the White's.
• Killing was "Accidental." Karr has said publicly he was with the 6-year-old when she died and called her death “an accident” See video. A preliminary transcript by Internet poster Margoo is here.
• According to the Modesto Bee, "Thai officials held a news conference, at which Karr appeared briefly. Suwat said Karr insisted his crime was not first-degree murder. "He said it was second-degree murder. He said it was unintentional. He said he was in love with the child," Suwat said. The Thai officer quoted the suspect as saying he tried to kidnap JonBenét for a $118,000 ransom but that his plan went awry and he strangled her to death."
• Full Details. The arrest warrant provides full details of the account provided to Michael Tracey via an extended series of emails. Karr claims a) to have entered through the basement window; b) carried JBR from her bed (without using a stun gun); c) hung her in the basement vertically while he asphyxiated her with a garrote while sexually assaulting her orally; d) accidently killing her in the process because in his passion, he hadn't paid attention to the length of time she was being asphyxiated; e) then deliberately striking her with a head blow to be certain she was dead (for fear that she might awake and suffer once he left or might be brain-injured); f) placing on her mouth a piece of duct tape from the flashlight he had brought (and then unexpectedly had to use to kill her); g) piercing her vagina 3 times so he could taste her blood; h) then walking upstairs to leave the RN in her bed, but upon hearing a noise upstairs instead left the note on the stairs and quickly hurried back to the basement, h) abandoned his plans to take her body with him for fear of detection; i) undressed her when he saw she had urinated, putting on oversize panties and taking with him her "knickers"; and j) exiting through the basement window and taking with him the flashlight. This account "ties together" much of the evidence at the crime scene, though not a single detail of this was unknown to those who have followed the case for years, as Karr did. One inconsistency is that no marks were found on JBR's wrists, suggesting the claim she had been hung for an extended period by her wrists to be a fabrication.

 

What May Have Happened

• Karr and Accomplice. Internet poster vaughancauthen(posted 1:39 PM,, 9/29/06) has postulated that Karr was at the crime scene with a female accomplice but he did not actually do the killing.

 

Incriminating Evidence

Confession

• Reuters reported that Karr had confessed to elements of the murder that were not available to the general public, but these details have not yet been released to the public.
• In his second interview with a Boulder investigator while still in Thailand, Karr allegedly said "If you don't let me plead guilty, how will you feel? How will you live with yourself when I kill a little girl?"
• Readers can judge the credibility of the confession from the video.
• Change in Demeanor. According to 48 Hours, November 25, 2006, Homeland Security investigators report that when Karr described how he delivered the head blow, his demeanor changed markedly.
• 1997 Confession? Internet poster Evening2 saw a clip on Rita Cosby on 8/25/06 in which they interviewed Wendy Nichols, a school bus driver who wrote to Boulder DA on August 19, 2006. Evening2 states: "In spring, 1997, while she and John Karr were visiting, in her home, about computers, he went from being totally relaxed until something came on the TV about the Ramsey case at which point it seemed like he was arguing with the TV, and he turned into a different person, arguing with the TV, you are so stupid, I can tell you about footprints in the snow, I can tell you, I know, I was there. He didn't say he killed JonBenet but said he was there." A NY Post account is here.
• Karr's confession on the phone conversations "explain" many puzzling details that heretofore did not seem to "hang together" especially with respect to an intruder:

1. Time to Write RN. Karr confirmed what others had speculated, that he was in the house several hours and had plenty of time to write note prior to taking JBR from her bed.
2. Sloppiness of Handwriting. Karr reports writing the note in the dark in John and Patsy Ramsey's bedroom; moreover, by self-report, he normally has very precise handwriting, so he deliberately sought to use a style that would not be recognized.
3. Deliberate Misspellings. Many have viewed some of the sophisticated language of the note (e.g., attache) with misspellings and "tough talk" as evidence that the note was fabricated by someone with more education. Karr is highly intelligent and was simply writing a ransom note in the style he presumed would be typical. He thought the allusion to a "foreign faction" and "beheading" would be taken seriously. All the language about "monitoring" and "early pickup" was just a fabrication. Karr had no plans or capability of following up on these threats.
4. Kidnapping Intentions. At the time he wrote the note, Karr claims not to know whether he would take JBR or not; it was definitely a possibility; even after she was dead, he was still considering this option (even though he hadn't worked through the details), but abandoned it when he thought he heard voices while he had returned to the kitchen to leave the ransom note.
5. Animosity Towards John. Karr's background "explains" many of the elements in the RN. He claims to have grown up in a family wealthier than the Ramseys and to have known Ramseys in Georgia, hence the allusions to "fat cats" and "good southern common sense" are very consistent with his frame of mind. Likewise, he reports never liking the fathers of little girls and in many cases being able to "bond" with their mothers, hence it made much more sense to target the note at John rather than Patsy or even both of them.
6. Getting Her Out of Bedroom. Karr reports that she slept the entire way from bed to basement,hence there is no need to explain why she didn't resist or cry out. In addition, while there is no independent corroborating evidence that he had met JBR before that night, his account taken at face value implies that when she did wake up, she was not alarmed because she knew and trusted him already.
7. What Happened to Panties. JBR was found in panties that were obviously over-sized. Given the trauma to her vagina, it was clear she had been re-dressed. If she were killed by an intruder, why redress her at all and why use the wrong size panties? Since JBR allegedly was asleep when she got home, she was wearing to bed the same panties she'd worn to the party; but it would make no sense for her to wear such obviously over-sized panties as they either would make her uncomfortable or her mother would insist on her changing them to avoid public embarrassment. It didn't really make sense for either an intruder or the parents to put her in wrong-sized panties, but if they had, what happened to the correct-sized pair presumably worn to the party? Karr's account explains this. He had always intended to take the panties as a souvenir (he allegedly had an entire collection from other trysts with little girls) and hence while waiting for Ramseys to return had gone into her drawers to pick out a pair to re-dress her in. It wasn't until he tried to put them on in the basement that he realized they were the wrong size and it was too late to switch. This did not deflect him from his plan to take away her original panties, which he allegedly did in his Gothic Box.
8. Nature of Assault. The assault on JBR always was an odd mixture of brutality (the head blow) and "gentleness." There were sexual elements of the crime, yet no semen or signs of penile penetration of the vagina, which would have been expected from a "standard" sexual predator. Conversely, pedophiles don't typically kill their victims, nor would conventional killers have any interest in penetrating her vagina with a paintbrush. Karr's account only alludes to oral sex (consistent with the forensic evidence of saliva in JBR's panties), but he also provides an explanation for why the vagina was pierced with the end of the paintbrush, drawing blood (so he could drink some: this account is nauseating to hear on tape, yet "rings true" in light of Karr's self-acknowledged oddness and Catholic upbringing; one can imagine someone with Karr's sexual proclivities thinking in this fashion). The death itself was accidental--a sexual asphyxiation "game" gone awry, just as Cyril Wecht has always proposed (though he had another perp in mind)--and the head blow was NOT intended as a cover-up but instead because Karr became preoccupied with a concern that JBR would be found brain-dead and be kept alive in a persistent vegetative state; in short, it was a "mercy" killing motivated by love, not either the intentional act of a brutal killer or an accidental consequence of "toilet rage." The paintbrush penetration occurred after her death, hence inflicted no pain etc.
9. Hair in Ligature. JBR's hair in the garotte was always "proof" that the ligature was tied while on her neck instead of the "conventional" way in which a professional killer would assault a victim, by creating the ligature first and then looping it over the victim's head. Thus, it was always interpreted as proof of after-the-fact "staging." Since there would be no reason for an intruder to stage anything, this was presumed to be important evidence pointing towards the parents. But in Karr's account of a love-making tryst, the ligature is a "necklace" put onto JBR with her permission and assembled (i.e., knots tied) much as a mother would braid a child's hair, from behind. JBR allegedly was preoccupied by playing with Karr's Gothic box and hence was in no way alarmed by or struggling against his efforts to fasten the ligature.
10. Placement of Body. There always seemed to be a "disconnect" between the brutality of the crime and the care that appeared to go into redressing JBR and wrapping her papoose-like and placing her in the wine cellar. Yet why would someone who cared so much also leave her in such a dark, dismal place with her hands still tied over her head? Karr's account explains all of this (though he never really explains why he didn't at least untie her hands: perhaps he planned to do so upon his return). He did redress her (he enjoyed dressing little girls) and he also took care to wrap her in a blanket because he didn't want her to be cold; he claims this was his "way" with little girls. He always took care to return them to their parents/homes in the same way that he found them. But he also describes placement in the room as "temporary." He himself recognizes that it was irrational to think that anyone could possibly see JBR while he was gone for just a very brief time, but that's the way he was thinking at the time. His plan after placing the RN was to return and take her with him, but that plan was thwarted.
11. Placement of RN. Many have thought it suspicious that the RN would be left on the back staircase normally used by Patsy rather than the main staircase to the second floor. How would a stranger intruder have known Patsy's habits? Karr states that his original intention was to leave the note in JBR's bedroom (a more "logical" place); indeed, he says he would have had JBR herself leave it there had he opted to take her. But his plans were thwarted by hearing a voice upstairs so he instead left it on the stairs.

• Little "Retro-fitting of Available Evidence. Karr's confession is somewhat more believable in that he insisted on some "quirky" details that did not easily fit into some conventional views of the case, suggesting he was not trying to "retrofit" his account to fit the known facts. These include:

1. No Stun Gun. His insistence that no stun gun was used and not being able to fully account for the marks on JBR's face and back.
2. No Hidden Meaning in SBTC. Karr said these were just nonsense letters that had no particular meaning.
3. No Movie Lines. Despite all the armchair sleuthing about which lines in the RN came from various movies, Karr insists that NONE of them knowingly did and expresses astonishment to learn that any did etc.
4. Significance of $118,000. Many had speculated that this represented the amount of John Ramsey's bonus, an amount that Karr in theory would have had plenty of time to discover given the time he was in the house. Instead, he explains the amount as being small enough to be readily affordable, i.e., $100,000 and then he tacked on another $18K because 18 was the age of consent (others have pointed out the actual age of consent was much lower than 18, but the issue is what Karr believed at the time he wrote the note: given that he trafficked in 6 year olds, there's no reason he would have needed to know the actual age of consent in Colorado, since 6 was obviously well below it).

 

Disturbing Emails

• 1996 Usenet Postings. About 40 posts were made from powerwurks.com users during early to mid 1996. There is strong evidence these posts were by John Mark Karr (links to the full set of posts is provided at the link shown).
• 2002-2006 Karr-Tracey Emails. For more than four years, Karr communicated extensively by email with University of Colorado professor Michael Tracey who subsequently shared these with authorities, culminating in Karr's arrest.

1. december251996@yahoo.com. Karr originally had used december251996@yahoo.com as his email address in his earliest correspondence with Tracey.
2. Daxis. By the end of his correspondence with Tracey, Karr was signing his emails Daxis, a name he claimed to have made up. Blogger Steve Huff at CrimeBlog.US stated: "In those e-mails that troubled Tracey, that may have marked the beginning of this most recent media circus, Karr signed the name “Daxis,” and he claims he made that up. Karr also claims on his various resumes  that he spent time in the Netherlands, and http://www.daxis.nl is apparently a pretty popular ISP in the Netherlands. From their site (if you speak Dutch, forgive the clumsy translation): "We sell hardware and software, as well as services in the field of Internet access, hosting, e-commerce, and infotainment…" Daxis has been around for a while, according to the website. A number of Usenet posts to groups apparently dedicated to subjects as disturbing as bestiality came from Daxis addresses — Karr would have known of the service, I’m almost certain. The first thing that occurred to me after looking this information up was that Karr was proving himself a liar again if he claimed he made the name up, didn’t borrow it from something else (the word Daxis appears as both a proper and a place name in Star Wars-based stories as well)."

• Knew Nedra Paugh's Nickname. According to 48 Hours, November 25, 2006, Karr knew nickname of Nedra Paugh was "Neddie" and that piece of "insider" information intrigued investigators.

1. We now know that Karr's family lived very close to Ramseys in Atlanta, so this is a bit of intelligence Karr might have picked up after the crime; but at the time Tracey was trying to snare Karr, this was not known.
2. There also is mention of "Neddie" on a now-defunct discussion board, JusticeWatch (see very bottom of page: it is clear from the earlier posts in the thread that the allusion to "Neddie" refers to Nedra Paugh.
3. Neddie is a common nickname for Nedra, which is a feminine version of Edward (with Ned being another form of Edward).

• Picture of Santa Bear? One of the emails included a picture that purported to be Karr as a young child with a "Santa bear" allegedly identical to the one found on JBR's bed; however, while the origins of this bear originally were a mystery for years (and hence subject to speculation that an intruder had brought the bear perhaps to entice JBR downstairs), the "mystery" subsequently was solved when it was determined the bear was won by JBR in a beauty pageant just weeks before her death. Since Karr allegedly was a well-informed student of the case, it is not clear what his motivation might have been in sending that picture.
• Posted as BSADCOCK? Internet poster sissi states: "I read this morning that Karr's mother had tried to kill him, and was later institutionalized. Her name was Patricia Adcock. This rang a bell, as I had received an e mail with a CC to BSADCOCK, concerning another suspect. It was a heads up letter from the "prophet" in Boulder. Maybe nothing? Or is it possible Karr was using bsadcock as a screen name in 1998?" (see Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:16 pm post)The Prophet was a suspect in the JBR killing based in part on his Web postings related to serial killers.
• Author of Patricia Letters? Some believe Karr authored the "Patricia" letters, allegedly written by Patsy Ramsey, but long regarded as a hoax. In those letters, she speaks of a mysterious friend who is her knight protecting her. However Internet poster Gsquared who brought the original Patricia letters to light, categorically denies this possibility since she received another post from a Patricia email address while Karr was in custody.

 

Disturbing Audiotapes

• A woman in California was able to tape several hours of conversation with Karr in 2001; these tapes reveal a deep obsession with JBR.
• A complete set of calls Karr made to Michael Tracey in 2006 has been posted on-line. Some of these are several hours long.

 

Police Investigation

• According to Boulder DA Mary Lacy, "the District Attorneys’ Office in conjunction with many other law enforcement agencies have spent the past few months locating, identifying and yesterday, arresting Mr. Karr. Much work has been done in those efforts."

 

Prior Record

• 2001 Child Pornography Charges. It is reported that "Karr was arrested April 13, 2001, and charged with five misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography. A computer seized from Karr's home reportedly contained pornographic images."
• Sex Offenses. In addition, it has been reported  that "An official with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said that Karr has a criminal record of sex offenses in Southern states near his former homes in Alabama and Georgia."
• Website Postings. Karr also reportedly "may have operated a Web site for troubled kids and posted dozens of notes on Internet message boards for young people - some asking them about sex - in the months before JonBenet's death." A list of Karr's posts to this site has been posted.
• Early Interest in Young Girls. Karr is remembered as having an interest in junior high school girls while in H.S.; he also married teen brides on two different occasions.

 

Handwriting Evidence

• Yearbook Samples. Samples of Karr's handwriting from his yearbook have been posted. A larger version is here.
• Expert Opinions

1. Bart Baggett. Baggett, the President of Handwriting University.com, asserted on his Website: "I'm sitting here looking at John Mark Karr's known writing, attempting to make a positive match with the famous Ramsey Ransom note. There are a few very strong similarities in the capital letters, but not an obvious, clear smoking gun match, at this point."

• Curtis Baggett. However, Bart Baggett's father, Curtis Baggett, reportedly "said he is 99.9 percent certain that John Mark Karr wrote the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note." Baggett is said to be "one of the nation's most well-known document examiners" and according to his own self-report, "he has testified in more than 2,500 cases and was successfully disqualified in only about four. He said he has never been disqualified when he has appeared at trial."

1. Views of Other Document Examiners Regarding Curtis Baggett Opinion. According to the Rocky Mountain News, "Several other document examiners have said they are strongly leaning toward Baggett's conclusion based on a comparison of Karr's writing in a high school yearbook with the three-page note left on the Ramsey family stairway on the day JonBenet was reported missing." However, "Texas document examiner Linda James, however, said that while there are similarities between the yearbook writing and the ransom note, more evidence is needed. 'There are too many other things to consider," she said.' She also said Baggett had considered similarities, but not dissimilarities."
2. Baggett Disqualified by Federal District Court Judges. According to the Rocky Mountain News, "Georgia Federal District Court Judge Clay Land wrote that analyst Curtis Baggett was not certified by several industry groups, had not undergone proficiency tests and had not authored texts in the field of handwriting analysis.

In comparison to another expert witness, Land said Baggett's qualifications "are clearly paltry." Similarly, "in 2004, a federal magistrate in Maine also challenged Baggett's credentials and excluded his testimony in a civil case there." Baggett reportedly "attributed the Maine and Georgia disqualifications to inadequate information about his credentials given to the courts in his absence."

• Don Lehew. Likewise, Don Lehew, a handwriting expert in Jacksonville, TXclaims “I have seen enough similarities in the samples and the ransom note to be convinced that the person who wrote this (the yearbook entry) is the same person who wrote this (the ransom note),” Lehew said. “A colleague of mine and I spoke together about the samples, and we found 13 separate similarities that are, in many cases, very unusual, and that makes it a match to me. It certainly indicates to me that John Karr did write the ransom note.”
• On-Line Analysis. Another analysis has been posted on-line by someone who is certain Karr is guilty of the murder.

 

Extensive Travels

• Internet poster vaughancauthen(posted 3:24 AM,, 9/30/06) notes:

"Check out John Karr's resume. The last point was, World Traveled: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Milan, Bologna, Stuttgart, Munich, Sydney Australia, Taipei, Singapore, Seoul Korea, Osaka Japan, Istanbul, Reunion Island off the coast of Madagascar, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and a host of other cities in the United States. How did a failed school teacher working as a nanny travel that far and wide if he hadn't been paid very well to do something?"

 

Other Evidence

• Multiple Personality Disorder??

1. A psychological profile of Karr has been posted.
2. Some speculate Karr may have had multiple personalities, as reflected by how he signed his high school yearbook and his ability to believe a brutal killing was an "accident."
3. Some theorists have long thought that some of the puzzles in the case arise because there were 2 or more individuals involved, i.e., a "calmer" personality wishing to carry out a simple kidnapping and a more explosive personality wishing to sexually abuse and kill the intended kidnap victim. Someone with multiple personalities might likewise better "fit" the available evidence.

• Karr at Boulder Bus Station 12/26/96? Dan Pride claims to have seen John Mark Karr on a bus leaving Boulder near midnight on Christmas of 1996 and to have contemporaneous proof of having talked with Karr. However, he describes Karr as being 5'11" when he in fact is only 5'6"; moreover, Internet poster Henrietta McPhee (post 11) asserts that before Karr came onto the scene, Read's original Web site first posted in 2002 stated: "The individual I asked for a cigarette light that night was 35 to 50 years old, emaciated, pot bellied, thin, about 5'11 and really terrified of something, perhaps just a schizophrenic having a bad day, perhaps someone who did not want to be seen. His physique reminded me of my father's after years of congestive heart failure. Vaguely cow boyish, He looked sort of like McReynolds from a two second flashed TV photo I saw years later after he died." McReynolds had a large white beard and was much older than Karr, so it is difficult to believe Read could have so substantially forgotten what the person he saw looked like. Pride himself, in an August 18, 2006 letter to the Boulder DA, acknowledges "As a witness I have credibility problems up the ying, I believe you would not want me involved. However with all the attention you should be able to locate others on the bus that night... it was packed. If I can be of help of course I would be will to, but as I said you will be better off with another source." He further explains "My reference to "Credibility issues" was a reference to this site. While every single word is correct and true and the events have happened exactly as described, it is of course a defense lawyers dream. A prosecutor would have to spend extensive effort to prove every word and then by the time he got done defending his witness and proving the credibility, the focus of the trial would be lost."
• Jaguar Explained? A report was made of an "unknown Jaguar seen in the area [of the Ramsey house] during a Christmas party at a friend’s home on Dec. 25.” John Karr was known to have driven a Jaguar, but CrimeRant reports John Karr "owned a 1987 gray Jaguar, with an original title date listed as “6/23/1997,” six months or so after JBR’s murder. The car is described as a 6 cylinder, 4-door sedan … the license plate number on Karr’s Jag was 49AT639. The VIN number listed as SAJAV134XHC475631." This would make it appear that Karr's Jaguar was not the car seen in Boulder on December 25. But as Internet poster one-eyed-jack has observed, Karr would NOT have necessarily had to own the car or have it registered to himself in order to be driving it at Christmas 1996.
• SBTC Explained? A former classmate reported that Karr had signed her high school yearbook with a statement that included "shall be the conquerer" which she suggests may be the meaning behind the S.B.T.C at the end of the ransom note. Unlike the rest of his lengthy yearbook entry, this closing section was in all capital letters. The parents of Karr's first wife (who was 13 when he married her) claim that they found letters Karr wrote to their daughter signed SBTC.
• Sex Change Operation. A doctor in Bangkok confirmed that Karr had inquired about getting a sex-change operation. It is not clear whether the motive was to disguise his identity or reflects his underlying sexual preferences. If the latter, it could explain why there was no semen evidence on JBR's body; he may have found alternative ways of obtaining sexual gratification.
• Black Market Activities? Given how little success Karr had at teaching, it has been unclear how he could support his lifestyle--a DeLorean, Jaguar, jetting around the world, etc.--unless he possibly was engaged in some sort of illicit activity involving drugs or pedophilia-related activities such as child pornography.

1. Some have speculated that Karr, having "spotted" JBR in August 1996 in Atlanta, shopped around pictures of her until he found a willing buyer, at which point he went to Boulder to literally kidnap JBR and sell her.
2. If he was dealing high-end used cars, it would not necessarily be unusual to drive a fair distance to deliver one; Karr might have persuaded his wife that he "needed" to deliver a Jaguar by Christmas in order to secure a bonus price for it, for example, in which case his absence would not have been suspicious.
3. Conversely, however, she surely by now would have remembered this situation so it wouldn't explain her current willingness to provide an alibi for Karr.
4. Illicit activities such as child pornography would have given Karr means, motive and opportunity to be in Boulder, although any credible explanation of this would also have to explain how he kept this hidden from two wives; given their very young ages, they may simply have been too naive or intimidated to know what really was going on.
5. According to Internet site rense.com: "In addition, WMR has learned of possible connections between GOP lawmakers and former school teacher John Mark Karr, who was arrested in Thailand and deported to the United States after he claimed, falsely, that he killed six-year old Jon Benet Ramsey at her Boulder, Colorado home in 1996. After Boulder prosecutors declined to prosecute Karr for JonBenet's death, he was transferred to Sonoma County, California to face misdemeanor child pornography charges. However, U.S. intelligence source report to WMR that the high degree of interest shown by U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. intelligence officials in Karr -- including having one CIA officer in Bangkok intercede, along with DHS Bangkok attache Ann Hurst, with Thai law enforcement authorities after Karr's arrest -- was due to Karr's knowledge of the involvement of top U.S. government officials in a major pedophilia ring."

• The suspect has been discussed extensively at We bbsleuths, a forum in which many lean towards an intruder-did-it theory and hence were inclined to view Mr. Karr with suspicion.

 

Exculpatory Evidence

 

Motivation for False Confession

 Create your own educational wiki!Help Add to Del.ici.ous Add to DiggPublic, not yet premium Privacy Policy RSS